Inside Apple's 2011: Steve Jobs' achievements, battles and crises

Jobs introduces iCloud, shuts down the PC-centric "digital hub" he booted up

Jobs also appeared at Apple's summer Worldwide Developer Conference in June to introduce iCloud as the "next big insight," replacing the PC "digital hub" he had introduced around the iMac ten years ago. In its place, Jobs would deliver upon his vision for bringing to the masses the type of cloud storage network technologies that had been put into place at NeXT in the early 90s. Rather than requiring a link to iTunes to set up new iOS devices, Jobs outlined a "PC Free" setup for iOS 5 that would enable users to link directly to iCloud and related features including iTunes Match without needing a local "digital hub," a major change in Apple's mobile device strategy.

Upon returning to Apple in 1997, Jobs had outlined the future of cloud computing at that year's WWDC. By the end of 2011, Apple delivered upon the initial premise of iCloud, with support in Mac OS X Lion, iOS 5, and in its iCloud web applications. The company is continuing work to enhance and expand upon those efforts.

Six months earlier, Samsung had unveiled at CES its own "digital hub" strategy, following in Jobs' footsteps from ten years prior but substituting the iMac with its "Smart TVs" running Adobe Flash and apps authored in AIR.

Jobs kills off Flash, Silverlight and forces ahead open standards: HTML5 and H.264

Along with Samsung, Google, HP, RIM, and a variety of other tablet makers had supported Flash in an effort to differentiate their products from Apple's Flash-free iOS devices. But by the end of the year, Adobe would concede defeat for Flash on mobile products, deferring instead to support the open HTML5 specification as Jobs had recommended years earlier.

Microsoft also abandoned its own Silverlight platform this year, similarly citing iOS as the reason it shifted its support to HTML5. Microsoft's push to embrace more open standards and technologies reflects its failed battle with Apple's iPod, MP3s and H.264/AAC, which Microsoft waged for years at astronomical costs. Its own efforts to push proprietary DRM with Windows Media Audio and WMV (aka VC-1) not only crashed with the failed HD-DVD format, but also its iPod competitor PlaysForSure and the company's Zune products, which it finally decided to terminate this year to focus on smartphones.

Google, which strongly backed Adobe's Flash both in Android and in YouTube and its other web properties, continued its own largely ineffectual efforts this year to push Adobe's proprietary Flash alongside its "royalty free" but patent encumbered WebM video codec in a bizarre effort to attack the ISO's H.264 video specification as "not open enough" because it involved patent licensing just like its own proprietary apps for Android or Flash itself.

While promoting itself as open, Google also closed access to its Android 3.0 code throughout the entire year. That left Apple's WebKit as the only truly open, major platform throughout 2011. The WebKit open source project, which Apple has used to push the open HTML5 specification it helped to develop alongside Google and other partners, has long been the largest open development platform, exceeding Android's roughly 50 percent share of all mobile devices by nearly a factor of two.

Last October, Jobs pointed out during an Apple conference call that "Google loves to characterize Android as 'open' and iOS and iPhone as 'closed.' We find this a bit disingenuous and clouding the real difference between our two approaches." He added that "many Android OEMs, including the two largest, HTC and Motorola, install proprietary user interfaces to differentiate themselves from the commodity Android experience. The user's left to figure it all out. Compare this with iPhone, where every handset works the same."

Jobs also described various Android app stores as "a mess for both users and developers" and noted that "many Android apps work only on selected handsets, or selected Android versions," alluding to the fact that most Android phones still run an OS release roughly a year old, and often can't be updated for 3 to 6 months after Google makes an update available, observations that remained accurate throughout the year.

Corrections,
Android 3.0 source code was released in mid-November, not quite making closed access for "the entire year".

Not so much a correction as you being pedantic. I suppose if it Honeycomb was still locked today you'd say that we can't be sure it was locked for "the entire year" because we don't know if Google would open up before new year hits.

edit: Personally, I would have been more precise but that's just the way I roll*.

Not so much a correction as you being pedantic. I suppose if it Honeycomb was still locked today you'd say that we can't be sure it was locked for "the entire year" because we don't know if Google would open up before new year hits.

Since it isn't then it's of no matter guessing then. We all have our pedantic moments I guess.

If it wasn't one of his favorite clubs to use in talking points I probably wouldn't have bothered mentioning it. I have no idea why a discussion of whether Google is open or not was included in the first place or in any way pertinent to the article. Wasn't it supposed to be about Apple in 2011 and Steve Jobs accomplishments and crises?

I have enjoyed this last 10 years. Living through a period of faster than usual innovation.

But it was Steve that did that. Committees fumble along, and do advance, but it is individuals with a spark that pick up the pace.

It is the American Peoples' love of individual achievement that allows them to maintain a faster pace than other countries, but they seem willing to throw the individual to the lions these days. e.g. if the group needs healthcare then the individual be damned.

I have been an Apple fan for a long time, but I wonder if I was really a Steve fan all along? If a new startup with a similar genius comes along, will I switch allegiances?

Since it isn't then it's of no matter guessing then. We all have our pedantic moments I guess.

If it wasn't one of his favorite clubs to use in talking points I probably wouldn't have bothered mentioning it. I have no idea why a discussion of whether Google is open or not was included in the first place or in any way pertinent to the article. Wasn't it supposed to be about Apple in 2011 and Steve Jobs accomplishments and crises?

Did a google search of AI, and I couldn't find any mention of DED pointing that out before. Perhaps you can cite where he's used this "favorite club"?

Also, the discussion of Google being "open or not" was based on WHAT STEVE JOBS SAID. Also, one can't list Jobs' accomplishments & battles for 2011 without addressing Android, where Google tried to take it, and how it failed.

And since this is 2011 and not 2010, DED is addressing Honeycomb more than Google TV!